Laurelwood Care Center

Even though we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a somewhat respectable nursing rating this year. We gave it a C in this area. We scrutinized the levels of nurses working for the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours the nurses spent with patients, in calculating our rating in this category. This nursing home provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this nursing home got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed very well in this metric. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning a resident more frequently.

This nursing home also didn't rate terribly in the category of short-term care. Indeed, we gave it a grade of C in that area, which turned out to be another one of its more favorable scores. Our short-term care grade is generally employed to grade a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To have highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to provide better levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this facility provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The last metric we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 3.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.

This nursing home's awful overall grade probably can't be attributed to its inspections. We awarded it a C for this category. We would argue that one of the most important factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially look at the severity of the deficiencies. This facility was hit with 9 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were in categories J through L. This tells you inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to place resident health or safety in immediate harm or jeopardy. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.

The last area we looked at is long-term care. We gave it an abysmal F in this category, which is a rock bottom grade. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care scores. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 93.962265 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.